for consideration of developments in
fair lending enforcement. Significantly,
however, the new administration has
not yet filled critical positions with
considerable responsibility for establishing
enforcement policy, including the
Department of Justice (DOJ) Assistant
Attorney General for Civil Rights,
Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) Assistant Secretary
for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity,
and HUD General Counsel. Given
these notable vacancies in key political
positions, it is difficult to estimate how
the approach to fair lending might shift,
but initial signals have presented a mixed
view.

In contrast to the flurry of fair lending
lawsuits at the tail-end of the Obama
administration, the DOJ under the new
administration has not yet initiated a
fair lending case. While many observers
expected the new administration to

Paul Hancock
Olivia Kelman

The Obama administration priori- tized an aggressive, and at times novel, approach to enforcement
of the federal fair lending laws—an approach that relied heavily, and at times
solely, on statistics to establish liability for
lending discrimination. Nowhere was this
emphasis more prevalent than in matters
advanced under a disparate-impact legal theory and in the redlining context.
Mortgage industry participants have long
recognized the importance of developing and implementing robust programs
to monitor fair lending, but compliance
officials frequently found their institutions
already behind the eight-ball with the
prior administration’s application of new
theories in supervisory exchanges. What
changes to fair lending enforcement
would accompany the Trump administration’s transition into office?

April 30, 2017, marks the 100th
day of the Trump administration and
provides at least an initial benchmark